- LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:
- Israeli tanks encounter fierce resistance from Hamas fighters
- Hamas uses tunnels to ambush Israeli forces in Gaza City
- The US is demanding that Gaza and the West Bank be united after the war under the leadership of the Palestinian Authority
- The US wants to limit Israeli control over Gaza after the war
WASHINGTON/GAZA/JERUSALEM, Nov 9 (Portal) – Street battles raged in Gaza City as Hamas militants used tunnels to ambush Israeli troops. The United States said the Palestinians must govern Gaza after the war and countered Israeli statements that it would control security indefinitely.
The Israeli military said its troops had advanced into the heart of Gaza City, Hamas’ main bastion and the largest city in the coastal enclave, while the Islamist group said its fighters had inflicted heavy casualties.
Hamas’ armed wing released a video on Wednesday that appeared to show violent street battles next to bombed-out buildings in Gaza City.
According to sources in Iran-backed Hamas and the separate militant group Islamic Jihad, Israeli tanks encountered stiff resistance from Hamas militants who used underground tunnels to stage ambushes.
Israel attacked Gaza in response to a cross-border Hamas attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7 in which gunmen killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and took about 240 hostage, according to Israel.
Palestinian officials said 10,569 people had been killed as of Wednesday, 40% of them children. Israel says 33 of its soldiers were killed.
Palestinian-led governance
As the war between Israel and Hamas enters its second month, Washington has begun discussing a future for Gaza without Hamas rule with Israeli and Arab leaders.
While a plan is still pending, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken explained Washington’s expectations for the besieged coastal area.
“No re-occupation of Gaza after the end of the conflict. No attempt to blockade or siege Gaza. No reduction of Gaza territory,” Blinken said at a news conference in Tokyo on Wednesday.
Blinken said that “some transition period” may be needed at the end of the conflict, but post-crisis governance “must include Palestinian-led governance and the unification of Gaza with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority.”
On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told ABC News that Israel would have security responsibility for the enclave “indefinitely” after the war.
Israeli officials have since tried to make clear that they do not intend to occupy Gaza after the war, but they have yet to articulate how they could ensure security without maintaining a military presence. Israel withdrew its forces from Gaza in 2005.
The Palestinian Authority (PA), which exercises limited self-rule in parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, says Gaza, where Hamas has ruled since 2007, is an integral part of what it envisions for a future Palestinian state.
Khalil al-Hayya, a member of the Hamas leadership, told the New York Times that the group’s attack on Israel was aimed at destroying the status quo and opening a new chapter in its fight against Israel.
“We managed to put the Palestinian issue back on the table and now there is no peace in the region,” he said, according to Wednesday’s newspaper.
Saleh al-Arouri, an exiled Hamas commander, told Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa TV on Wednesday that Hamas militants were determined to inflict casualties on Israeli forces in ground fighting in Gaza. “The more (Israel) spreads and expands on the ground, the greater its losses will be,” he said.
A snippet of Hamas video released on Wednesday showed fighters in Gaza running past piles of rubble and stopping to fire shoulder-fired rockets at Israeli tanks. Another showed them firing guns from perches behind buildings and dumpsters. Portal was unable to authenticate the footage.
ISRAEL BOMBS TUNNEL
Israel’s top military spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said on Wednesday that “Hamas has lost control of the north” of Gaza.
Israel’s combat engineers used explosive devices to destroy Hamas’ network of tunnels stretching hundreds of kilometers (miles) beneath Gaza, he said. The military said it had destroyed 130 tunnel shafts so far.
Israel blames Hamas for civilian deaths in Gaza, saying it uses Gazans as human shields and hides weapons and operations centers in residential areas.
Israeli troops brought foreign reporters to the outskirts of Gaza City on Wednesday. Journalists saw a devastated landscape where every building in sight was scarred by the battle.
Walls were blown away, bullet holes and shrapnel littered the facades, and palm trees were torn and broken.
Lt. Col. Ido, deputy commander of the 401st Brigade, who did not give his last name, said all families left when the soldiers reached those buildings.
“So we know that everyone here is our enemy. We didn’t see any civilians here. Only Hamas,” he said, standing in a badly damaged, pink-painted children’s room.
Soldiers on the press tour said that beneath the family apartment were two floors of workshops producing weapons, including drones, which were discovered in five wooden boxes. It was not possible to verify the claim.
50,000 Palestinians move to the south
About 50,000 Palestinian civilians left the north on Wednesday, Hagari said, during a four-hour window announced by Israel.
The Israeli military has repeatedly told residents to evacuate the north or risk falling into violence. An Israeli airstrike on a house near a hospital in the Jabalia refugee camp in the north of the Gaza Strip killed at least 19 people on Wednesday, the enclave’s Interior Ministry said.
There was no immediate Israeli comment or details on the reported attack, which if confirmed would be the third on Gaza’s largest refugee camp in a week.
Officials from the United Nations and G7 world powers called for a humanitarian pause in the war to help civilians in Gaza, where essential food, medicine and fuel are running out.
Qatar, where several Hamas leaders are based, is expected to negotiate the release of 10 to 15 hostages in return for a one- to two-day humanitarian pause in Gaza, a source briefed on the talks said on Wednesday.
Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza, Maytaal Angel, Emily Rose and Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem, Rami Amichay in Tel Aviv, Matt Spetalnick and Humeyra Pamuk in Washington and other Portal bureaus; Writing by Cynthia Osterman; Edited by Michael Perry
Our standards: The Thomson Portal Trust Principles.
Acquire license rights, opens new tab